On the screen, click each teacher then click "Edit User Info", then enter their PIC. Or you may import the PIC's from a data file.

School Numbers

On the screen, enter your information for each school. The "Default County" is applied to any new students.

Attendance Codes

On the screen, you may customize any attendance codes. Just make sure the "Count as" menus are set to meet state requirements, like the example below. Both excused and unexcused absences are reported, so the difference is just for your internal use (see Setup Attendance). Be sure to check your elementary schools for Daily attendance, and your secondary schools for Period attendance.

Note: If a student transfers schools within the district or attends two schools concurrently, it does count attendance from both schools correctly.

Race/Ethnicity

On the screen, no special setup is required. The default settings are fine, or you may customize them, as long as it still contains the six required races/ethnicities with recognizable keywords like Hispanic/Latino, Black/African, Asian, Pacific/Hawaiian, Native/Indian/Alaskan, and White. Any unrecognized race/ethnicity will not be reported.

Special Programs

By default, the screen includes checkboxes for IEP, 504 Plan, GATE, ELL, Migrant, Homeless, Free Lunch & Reduced Lunch. But these checkboxes are not used for MSDS, and they are redundant with the more specific settings on the screen. So to avoid confusion, erase those items from the screen. You may keep any other special groups, like Athletes.

Terms

On the screen, click each grading period, then edit the "Term Code" box. This determines which grades to report to MSDS.

Enter 1 if you want that grading period reported as the first half of a course (CourseSection=02). Enter 2 if you want that grading period reported as the second half of a course (CourseSection=03). Enter "total" (or anything else) if you want that grading period reported as the total grade for the whole course (CourseSection=01). Leave it blank for interim grades that should not be reported.

The state wants to know the cumulative final grade for the course, so here are examples to follow:

Term
Q1
Q2S1
Q3
Q4S2

Codeblankblank
1blankblank
2

Term
Q1
Q2S1
Q3
Q4S2Yr

Codeblankblankblankblankblankblank
total

Term
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4Yr

Codeblankblankblankblank
total

Term
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4

Code
1
1
2
2

The Teacher-Student Data Link collection reports any grading period with a non-blank Term Code, regardless of what the code is. Only the Migrant Curriculum Courses component uses the specific code (1/2/total), so don't worry about it if not applicable.

The "Course Type" menu is somewhat redundant with the "GPA" menu, so leave it on "Same as GPA menu" unless you need to make an exception.

The "Term Type" menu is somewhat redundant with the "Duration" menu, so leave it on "Same as Duration menu" unless you need to make an exception. During summer school that menu setting changes to "Auto-detect Summer". (This is reported only for Migrants, so you may ignore this if not applicable.)

Check "Virtual Course" if all students are remote. If only some students are remote, leave this unchecked, and instead set the individual students to Virtual on the screen.

Course Enrollment

On the screen, click the MSDS button to identify if the student is Auditing or Tested Out of a class, or has Ongoing Enrollment for special ed. Check "Virtual" if the student is remote. (This is already checked if the whole course is Virtual.)

For regular adds and drops, use the regular screens as usual. If a student has a grade when they are dropped, they are reported as withdrawn. Otherwise, if they have no grade, the data is deleted and not reported. (If a student was graded mistakenly, add the student back so the teacher can erase the grade, then drop the student again.)

For the export, the Completion Status is determined automatically based on the student's grade and special ed. status.

Student Data

On the screen, enter the student's UIC, grade level, address, parent phone number, gender, birthdate, and race/ethnicity. For early childhood, set the grade level to "Pre-Kindergarten". For ungraded special ed. students, set the grade level blank.

Use the first parent/contact column for the address and phone number. (The second column is ignored.) If the parent has multiple phone numbers, the first phone number is reported (the rest are ignored).

See the screen for information specific to Michigan, like FTE, exit status, residency, and special programs.

Note: Some items are somewhat redundant:

The "Language" on the Add/Edit screen is not reported; it's used only for reports and the parent/student login. See the MSDS screen to report the "Home Language" for LEP students.

The "Graduated" date on the Add/Edit screen is not reported; it's used only for transcripts. See the MSDS screen to report the exit date.

If the Add/Edit screen still has checkboxes for IEP, 504 Plan, Migrant, etc., they are not the same as the MSDS screen. Go to the screen to erase those.

Discipline

On the screen, when you edit any referral, check "Report to MSDS" to add the required information for incidents and consequences. Only admins can do this, not teachers.

Exporting

Go to the screen to select an MSDS collection to export. Pay attention to which year you have selected at the top of the webpage. The XML files are download as .zip files.

When you upload the file to MSDS, if it reports errors that you cannot resolve, please contact us.

Caution: After you upload the Teacher Student Data Link, do not edit the course numbers, section numbers, and term abbreviations (like "S1"). Otherwise, if you re-upload the course grades, it will not match the old courses, so MSDS will save them as new courses. Then you would have to manually delete the old grades on the MSDS website for all students.